Trump national emergency: President plans to use $8 billion to build border barrier

Updated Feb 15, 2019; Posted Feb 15, 2019

AP

President Donald Trump speaks during an event in the Rose Garden at the White House to declare a national emergency in order to build a wall along the southern border, Friday, Feb. 15, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)

President Trump said he will declare a national emergency to build an $8 billion barrier along the U.S./Mexico border.

The president made the announcement on Friday, just after Congress passed a spending bill that omits most of the funding for one of his administration’s signature projects. Trump announced he plans to sign the measure.

“I am going to be signing a national emergency,” Trump said. “We’re talking about an invasion of our country with drugs, with human traffickers.

"We don’t control our own border. We’re going to confront the national security crisis on our southern border and we’re going to do it – one way or the other we have to do it."

The president plans to redirect $3.6 billion in military construction funding; $2.5 billion from the Pentagon’s drug-interdiction program; and $600 million from the Treasury Department’s asset-forfeiture fund, The Hill reports.

The move is expected to lead to multiple court filings seeking to block Trump’s efforts.

Democratic Senate Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi described the move as a “power grab by a disappointed president.”

“Just as both parties honored our oath to protect the American people by passing the conference committee bill, the Congress on a bipartisan basis must honor the Constitution by defending our system of checks and balances,” they said in a joint statement. “The president is not above the law. The Congress cannot let the President shred the Constitution,”

The president originally requested $5.7 billion in funding for a wall.

President Trump Speaks on the National Security & Humanitarian Crisis on Our Southern Border https://t.co/FqdfFORbv5